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Family Hope For Closure Of Missing 1964 Aviator (Nevada)
KOLO ^ | September 12, 2007

Posted on 09/12/2007 4:32:32 PM PDT by Shermy

With the search for missing adventurer Steve Fossett revealing missing planes dating back to the World War Two, it has stirred hopes for one family that they might actually find out what happened to their missing aviator father.

For 43 years, Dr. William Olge, has questioned what happend to his father.

Charles Olge, an experienced pilot who trained as an aviator in the U.S Marine's, took off from Oakland, bound for Reno in the summer of 1964, in his Cessna 210.

He was never heard from again.

The massive hunt for Fossett now may help resolve the enduring mystery surrounding Charles Ogle, then 41.

The search for Fossett has covered some 17,000-square-miles of the Sierra Nevada and has revealed the wreckage of eight other small planes that had never, until now, been discovered.

Each of these crash sites could hold vital clues as to the fate of Charles Olge.

None of the crash sights have been properly investigated apart from to confirm that it is not Fossett's.

Dr. William Olge, who was aged 4 at the time his father went missing is hopful that when crews return to these newly found sites and have the chance to examine them for clues, they may yield the answers that he and other relatives have sought since 1964.

When Charles Olge was not heard from all those years ago, the Western Air Rescue Center at the now-defunct Hamilton Air Force Base in Novato searched for only 60 hours before giving up.

There was never a funeral or memorial for Charles Ogle, so the closure provided, if one of those Nevada wrecks is his, would be welcome.

"When all is said and done, they'll send ground crews in to thoroughly investigate what is left," Civil Air Patrol Maj. Cynthia Ryan said of the old crashes.

Eventually, some of the old crashes should be linked to long-missing aviators, Ryan said. Even small pieces of wreckage can contain a serial number that can be tracked back to the manufacturer and the owner of the plane.

Nevada's forbidding backcountry is a graveyard for small airplanes and their pilots.

Ryan figures more than 100 planes have disappeared in the past 50 years in the state's mountain ranges, which are carved with steep ravines and covered with sagebrush and pinon pine trees.

More than a dozen aircraft were scanning the terrain Wednesday for any sign of Fossett, who took off Sept. 3 from a private airstrip about 80 miles southeast of Reno, along with thousands of volunteers around the world who are poring over online satellite imagery.

Searchers have spent 10 fruitless days scanning for signs of the single-engine Bellanca Citabria Super Decathlon that Fossett took up to look for a dry lake bed suitable for a planned attempt to set a land speed record.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; News/Current Events; US: Nevada
KEYWORDS: aviationcrashes; crashsite; fossett; planes; themissing

1 posted on 09/12/2007 4:32:33 PM PDT by Shermy
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To: Shermy
The search for Fossett has covered some 17,000-square-miles of the Sierra Nevada and has revealed the wreckage of eight other small planes that had never, until now, been discovered.

Ryan figures more than 100 planes have disappeared in the past 50 years in the state's mountain ranges,

Wow, I always have assumed that most missing planes and their pilots are found. Just shows you have hard it is to find things when not in plain sight

...and the democrats bitch we can't find OBL

2 posted on 09/12/2007 4:40:52 PM PDT by Popman (Nothing + Time + Chance = The Universe ---------------------Bridge in Brooklyn for sell - Cheap)
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To: Popman

“None of the crash sights have been properly investigated apart from to confirm that it is not Fossett’s.”

Fascinating.


3 posted on 09/12/2007 5:01:52 PM PDT by BerryDingle
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To: Shermy
I hope they find Amelia Earhart out there.

Nobody would see that coming.

4 posted on 09/12/2007 5:07:05 PM PDT by BallyBill (Serial Hit-N-Run poster)
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To: Shermy

I was thinking about this and how if families find their loved ones then Fossett didn’t die in vain. (if he is, in fact, dead. I was sure he would live forever)


5 posted on 09/12/2007 5:47:11 PM PDT by RDTF (Republicans believe every day is July 4th, but Democrats believe every day is April 15th. - Reagan)
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To: BIGLOOK

Ping a Ling

Regards

alfa6 ;>}


6 posted on 09/12/2007 6:12:30 PM PDT by alfa6
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To: alfa6; george76
Heard Citabria had a wood frame, can you confirm?

Sent this off earlier to George.

I think you pegged it first.
7 posted on 09/12/2007 6:25:17 PM PDT by BIGLOOK (Keelhauling is a sensible solution to mutiny.)
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To: BIGLOOK; george76
Courtesy of Wikipedia, I thought that the Citabria had some fabric coverings. It looks like, after a quick read, that the entirew plane is fabric. I bet that the doped fabric burns real good. Sure hope I is wrong

The Citabria traces its lineage back to the Champ. The most noticeable external changes to the design are the Citabria's squared-off rudder surface, wing tips, and rear windows. Like the Champ, the Citabria features tandem seating. The fuselage and tail surfaces are constructed of welded metal tubing. The outer shape of the fuselage is created by a combination of wooden formers and longerons, covered with fabric. The cross-section of the metal fuselage truss is triangular, a design feature which can be traced all the way back to the earliest Aeronca C-2 design of the late 1920s. Bellanca 7ECA Citabria Bellanca 7ECA Citabria The strut-braced wings of the Citabria are, like the fuselage and tail surfaces, fabric covered, utilizing aluminum ribs. Most Citabrias were built with wooden spars. American Champion has been using aluminum spars in the aircraft it has produced and has, as well, made the aluminum-spar wings available for retrofit installation on older aircraft. The landing gear of the Citabria is in a conventional arrangement. The main gear legs of most Citabrias are made of spring steel, though American Champion began to use aluminum gear legs in 2004. Early Citabrias were fitted with steel tube main gear which use an oleo strut for shock absorption. All of the variants are discussed in more detail below.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citabria#Design)

Regards

alfa6 ;>}

8 posted on 09/12/2007 6:59:04 PM PDT by alfa6
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To: BIGLOOK; alfa6

Thank you for the follow up.

Any thoughts on why the automatic electronic locator signals were not sent ?

Would a fire and / or crash destroy the box which was alledgedly in the tail ?


9 posted on 09/12/2007 9:29:24 PM PDT by george76 (Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)
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To: Popman

One of my Mom’s cousins was lost in a plane crash near Mt. Shasta forty years ago, and they found the wreckage some 30 years later...

Ed


10 posted on 09/12/2007 9:29:52 PM PDT by Sir_Ed
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To: Popman
Wow, I always have assumed that most missing planes and their
pilots are found.


I'm not an aviator or crash-site analyst.

But I suspect that in rough areas like our Western mountain states,
there are a fair number of uncharted (actually, I mean un-discovered)
crash sites.

A plane crashes into the side of a mountain which itself is buried in snow,
or noses in at great speed, such that maybe even the wings separate
from the body before impact,
or it just disappears under an rarely-visited mountain lake or river...

In the old days before lots of communication and sparser population,
and no GPS...not surprising a fair number go missing.

IIRC, the father of Good Morning, America hostes Joan Lunden's
father went out in his private plane one day...and vanished.

If it could happen to Joan Lunden's father, or Mr. Fossett...
it could happen to a lot of flyers.
11 posted on 09/12/2007 9:38:24 PM PDT by VOA
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To: george76

Sorry, I have little knowledge regards the ELTs.

Speculation would be that A there wasn’t one. B it didn’t work due to bad batteries or C ???

Regards

alfa6 ;>}


12 posted on 09/13/2007 2:35:10 AM PDT by alfa6
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To: Shermy

This shows how easy it is to make up a mystery like the “Bermuda Triangle”. If 100 planes can go missing in Nevada, how many more over the South Atlantic?


13 posted on 09/13/2007 2:47:44 AM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets (NYT Headline: Protocols of the Learned Elders of CBS: Fake but Accurate, Experts Say)
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets

BUMP!


14 posted on 09/13/2007 10:35:33 AM PDT by Publius6961 (MSM: Israelis are killed by rockets; Lebanese are killed by Israelis.)
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